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This paper aims to numerical and experimental analysis on substrate deformation and plastic strain induced by wire arc additive manufacturing.

The component has the form of a hollow, rectangular thin wall consisting of 25 deposition layers of SS316L on an SS304 substrate plate. Thermo-mechanical finite element analysis was applied with Goldak’s double-ellipsoidal heat-source model and a non-linear isotropic hardening rule based on von Mises’ yield criterion. The layer deposition was modelled using simplified geometry to minimize overall pre-processing work and computational time.

A new material modelling of SS316L was obtained from the chemical composition of the evolved component characterized by scanning electron microscope/energy dispersive X-ray and further generated by an advanced material-modelling software JMatPro. In defining heat-transfer coefficients, transient thermometric analysis was first performed in the bead and on the substrate, which was followed by an adjustment of the heat-transfer coefficients to reflect the actual temperature distribution. Based on the adjusted model and boundary conditions, sensitivity analysis was conducted prior to the ultimate simulation of substrate deformation and equivalent plastic strain. Furthermore, this simulation was verified by conducting a series of automated wire + arc additive manufacturing tests using robotic gas Metal arc welding with distortion measured by coordinate-measurement machine and equivalent plastic strain measured by optical three-dimensional-metrology measurements (Gesellschaft für Optische Messtechnik).

It can be concluded that a proper numerical computation using the adjusted model and property-evolved material exhibits a similar trend with acceptable agreement compared to the experiment by yielding an error percentage up to 30% for deformation and up to 21% for equivalent plastic strain at each individual measurement point.

Brand equity has been highlighted as a crucial element in differentiating products and achieving competitive advantage. Recent studies reflect the gradual rise in interest in the importance of building brand equity linked to the store. However, empirical evidence about the antecedents of store brand equity is still scarce, particularly on the retailer’s corporate social responsibility behavior. This chapter aims to analyze the influence of the retailer’s commitment to sustainable development (RCSD) and the credibility of the retailer’s communications on the overall store brand equity. Focusing on two samples of hypermarket customers in France and Spain, the findings provide evidence on the importance of the RCSD regarding employees, society, and environment, as well as the effectiveness of credible communications to generate store brand equity. Results are consistent for France and Spain.

The hypermarket industry in Malaysia has created a huge momentum for modern retailing concepts. The industry has been developing impressively, and the word hypermarket seems in need of a new definition. There is an overlap of the definitions for hypermarket, supermarket and shopping mall. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to focus on recent Malaysian hypermarket retailing developments that could be used as sources for definition. A few expansion opportunities are also emphasized in this paper.

A review of the literature from various research studies in the field was made. In order to strengthen the existing findings, practical implementations on hypermarket retailing within the Malaysian market were also studied in this research. In general, this research focuses on hypermarket retailing in the Malaysian scenario.

Malaysian hypermarkets can be defined using retail developments within the industry as sources for definition works. This industry can also be expanded further through: product brand extension; service experience enhancement; self‐checkout technology; coupons promotion; online hypermarket; and one district one industry (SDSI) market intervention program.

The definition of hypermarket in this research paper is streamlined further to differentiate it from a supermarket or shopping mall. With the potential expansion opportunities, it is expected that there will be a clearer path to outgrow this industry.